Reusable software components may be presented as ActiveX controls. ActiveX may comprise a software protocol based on the Component Object Model (COM) architecture available from MICROSOFT CORPORATION. For example, ActiveX may enable an application program to add functionality by calling ready-made components that may blend in and appear as normal parts of the application program. ActiveX may be used, for example, to add user interface functions, such as 3D toolbars, notepads, calculators, or spreadsheets. On the Internet or on an intranet, ActiveX controls may be linked to a web page and downloaded by an ActiveX-compliant web browser. Like any native executable program, ActiveX controls may perform nearly any operation on a computer.
In conventional systems, reusable software component (e.g. ActiveX) control properties are persisted in a binary format. In some file formats (e.g. XMLSpreadsheet), the reusable software component control properties may be persisted outside of extensible markup language (XML), for example. Thus, the conventional strategy is to persist reusable software component control properties completely in a binary format. This often causes problems because the conventional strategy does not persist reusable software component control properties in a user friendly format such as those used by markup languages. For example, the conventional strategy merely persists reusable software component control properties completely in a binary format.